The Darcy Connection (24 page)

She had never succeeded in quelling Eliza's unruly tongue or temper, but had found Charlotte an apt pupil in whom to instil the virtues of self-control, patience, and a kind of polite stoicism. Whether you had the toothache at a dinner party or blistered feet and dancing were suggested, then you put your best face on it, you smiled, you did what was expected of you.

“Not to do so,” she would say, “is to draw attention to yourself, and that is something that no young lady should ever do.”

Miss Gibson had long since left the Palace for other employment, but now Eliza could see some sense in her tiresome precepts. She smiled, she danced, she even managed to flirt a little, and all the time she was thinking, What do I say to Anthony, when can I speak to him? and at the same time, Why does not Bartholomew Bruton come near me, why will he not dance with me?

Had she but known it, Bartholomew was as much put out as she was. Who the devil was this Diggory character? What did he think he was doing, presuming on an old acquaintance to try to monopolise Eliza Collins? Henrietta Rowan remarked on his good looks and, with a quick glance at Bruton's set face, added that he seemed very taken with Eliza. “A beau, from her home country, I suppose,” she said.

Yet Bartholomew could have sworn that Eliza was far from being delighted to see Anthony Diggory. He guessed at a boy-and-girl attachment, yet Diggory's proprietorial attitude to Eliza suggested a deeper liking, at least on his part.

Lady Sarah, who was sitting with the dowagers in a forest of turbans and feathers, was beckoning to him. “Who is the good-looking young man Miss Eliza is dancing with?”

“Anthony Diggory. He is from Yorkshire, I believe.”

A jolly-looking matron with several chins, who was sitting next to Lady Sarah, broke into their conversation. “From Yorkshire? Tell Miss Eliza Collins to bring him over, Bartholomew, that is my home county, and I am sure I know his face. Let me see who he is, desire him to come over here.”

Bartholomew could hardly bring himself to look at Eliza as he delivered his message. She had a taut look which was new with her, and her lovely slanting smile, the smile that had so bewitched him, was not much in evidence. She walked across the floor, her dress swishing about her ankles, to where Mrs. Darling was sitting. The chinful woman examined her from head to toe, then turned her beady gaze on Anthony and demanded his name.

“Aye, I thought so,” she said. “As soon as I clapped eyes on you, I said to myself, that has to be a Diggory. You'll be Sir Roger's boy, you have a great look of him, you are the image of who he looked when he was a young man.”

Eliza blinked, how could that be possible? Anthony was tall and handsome, with a clear complexion; Sir Roger could never have looked like that. Only…perhaps it was so. A heavier, ruddier Anthony some thirty years from now, perhaps even stricken with the gout; yes, he would be very like Sir Roger, how had she never seen it?

Mrs. Darling was talking about her girlhood in Yorkshire, remembering long-ago balls and picnics and parties. “Then I married a southerner, and came away. I fancied myself in love with your father when I was a girl, he was so dashing on the dance floor, he looked so splendid on horseback, all of us were wild for him. In the end he married Cecily, your mother, who was not the prettiest of us, not by a long chalk. Is that your sister? Yes, she is the image of her grandmother, and she, my mother told me, was considered very fast when she was young. Look at her bouncing down the dance there, casting saucy eyes at the young men, she will turn a few heads, I dare say.”

Anthony did not seem at all pleased at this forthright speech, although courtesy demanded that he listen with an agreeable expression on his face. When Mrs. Darling turned to exchange another reminiscence with Lady Sarah, his eyes were on his sister, who was indeed in a high flow of spirits.

He finally escaped, taking Eliza with him, and as they moved away, she heard Lady Sarah say to her companion, “I am pleased to see Miss Eliza Collins with that young man, I think they are well suited, do not you?”

Eliza did not linger to catch Mrs. Darling's reply, a reply which wasn't at all what Lady Sarah wanted to hear. “I have no idea who she is, but with that voice and air, to marry a country squire? No, Sir Roger's son needs to marry a woman such as Cecily was, a practical, no-nonsense young woman, with a good fortune and no temperament, there is no room for temperament in a squire's wife.”

By now, Lady Grandpoint had become aware of the young man's attentions to Eliza and, drawing Charlotte to one side, demanded to know who he was.

“He is Anthony Diggory, and his sister, Maria, is here also. I have no idea why they are here in London, and, no, ma'am, Eliza did not tell me they were coming to town. Indeed, I think she is surprised to see them.”

“If you do not object, we shall leave early,” said her godmother. “Really, it is more than I bargained for, having to keep an eye on Eliza. What is Sir Roger thinking of, to let his children come to London, when he was so eager for his son and Eliza to be kept apart? I must remember to make it clear to the servants that, should Mr. Diggory call, we are not at home, and that on no account is he to be admitted to see Eliza. I suppose, if they are to be fixed in town for a while, there will be nothing for it but to pack Eliza off back to Yorkshire. I do not scruple to say, my dear, that this visitation could not come at a more inconvenient time.”

It didn't occur to Lady Grandpoint that Anthony might pay a call immediately after breakfast the next morning, before she herself was up, and before she had had the opportunity to issue instructions to her servants.

Eliza was up, and sitting in the morning parlour. Anthony was announced, and before she could deny him, he was in the room, striding across to her and taking both her hands in his. “My dearest Eliza, this is what I wanted, to find you alone.”

She could tell that he wanted to take her into his arms, and she was determined he should not. She retreated, and backed behind a chair. “Remember where you are,” she said in a firm voice. “Indeed, Anthony, you should not be here, not at this hour, it is too early for calls, my great-aunt is still in her room, and Charlotte—”

“I have not come to see Charlotte nor Lady Grandpoint, although I am happy to seek an interview with her later today. Eliza, you must hear our wonderful news. My father has relented, and my mother, too, they have given their consent to our being engaged. And the instant they told me, I rode over to the Palace, to ask the bishop for your hand, and you have his consent and blessing.”

Eliza came out from behind the chair and sat on it, staring at Anthony. She was imagining this, she was still asleep, it was nothing more than a tormenting dream.

“It isn't possible,” she managed to say.

“Are you not overjoyed? It is all to do with Charlotte, you see. Now that she is to be a marchioness, well, it changes everything. Not for me, of course, I could not care whom Charlotte marries, so long as she is happy, but these things matter in the eyes of the world, and to my parents—and yours.”

“It is all a mistake,” cried Eliza. “Charlotte is not going to marry anyone, or at least, not Montblaine.”

“Pooh, do not try to tell me that,” he said, pacing up and down the room. “I saw her yesterday with his lordship—he is rather old, is he not? But that may suit Charlotte. My aunt pointed him out, and there he was, deep in conversation with Charlotte and taking her in to supper. My aunt says it is the talk of the town, that he is present at all the balls and assemblies where Charlotte is, for normally he doesn't stay in town for more than a few days together, and never goes out in society. I must say, she will make a very good marchioness.”

“She is not—”

“I know there is no formal announcement, but it is only a matter of time, so my aunt says. As long as Charlotte behaves as she ought—and you, too, sweetheart, for my aunt says it would be a disaster if you were caught up in any scandal, everything has to be just so with his lordship, it seems.” Anthony stopped pacing and pulled out a chair to sit close to her. “And that is why it is so good that we can now become engaged, for to tell you the truth, I didn't feel a secret engagement was quite right, and of course if that should come to his lordship's ears—well, he might not like it, he would certainly think it not at all the thing.”

It was now or never. Eliza took a deep breath. “Anthony, you have been very busy on my behalf, however—”

Anthony paid no attention to what she was saying, as he searched in his waistcoat pocket. “I have here a letter from your father, and your mother has added some words to it, you will wish to read it—no, stay, this is not the letter, it is a farrier's bill. Ah, here it is.” He thrust the letter into her hands.

Eliza let it flutter to the floor. “Anthony, listen to me. I cannot marry you.”

“Not marry? Eliza, you do not understand. All the obstacles to our union are swept away. We can be married as soon as we like, I thought July.”

“No, Anthony. We will not be married in July, or any other month. There is no way to soften what I have to say, so I shall say it directly, and you must believe me. I cannot marry you. I was in love with you, but that is no longer the case. We were guilty of folly, it was too quick an affection, and then, there, in Yorkshire, I felt—”

He was looming over her, his face reddening. “Eliza, you have taken leave of your senses. Of course we are to marry, of course you love me. We are engaged, we are betrothed, privately, and now it can be quite openly and properly announced.”

“My sentiments towards you are not the same as they were when we parted,” Eliza said bluntly. “And I am convinced that I would not make you a good wife, Anthony. Your parents were right, we should not be happy.”

“Not be happy! When you fill my waking thoughts, aye, and I dream of you sometimes, and I am a sound sleeper, I am not given to dreaming.”

At that moment, the door opened again, and in swept Lady Grandpoint, her nose in the air, the demeanour forbidding in the extreme, demanding an explanation for Anthony's presence, rebuking Eliza for receiving a young man alone, at this time of the morning.

Would it be better in the evening? Eliza said inwardly, as she watched Anthony try to quell the tide of Lady Grandpoint's indignation and manage to have his say before he was forcibly ejected.

“Ma'am,” he cried. “Pray listen. I have a letter, from Mrs. Collins. I am permitted to pay my addresses to Eliza, to Miss Eliza Collins, indeed I have to inform you that I have asked Eliza to be my wife, and she has accepted my hand.”

“No,” began Eliza, desperate that this should go no further. “No, Anthony, no, your ladyship, it is not so, I am not going to marry Anthony.”

With an audience, albeit one who was at that moment deep in the letter from Mrs. Collins, Anthony felt on surer ground. He grasped Eliza by the hand and drew her to his side.

“Our attachment is of long standing,” he said, “and now we are engaged.”

Long standing? A few weeks, that was all. Yet how long had she known Mr. Bruton, and if there was an attachment there, one strong enough for her to cast Anthony aside, then how could she say that those weeks with Anthony were not enough?

Lady Grandpoint looked from one to the other of them, sharply, appraisingly.

“I shall write to your mother, Eliza,” she said finally. “Mr. Diggory, you are not to consider yourself engaged, or that Miss Eliza is in any way bound to you. I shall write to Bishop and Mrs. Collins at once, there are other considerations, important considerations, about which you know nothing. Meanwhile, pray do not call again. Miss Eliza will not be at home for the time being.”

“With all respect, Lady Grandpoint, this is unfair, unreasonable. Eliza and I have been parted for several weeks, we surely are entitled to spend some time together.”

“Entitled? There is no entitlement here. An engagement, even between a Miss Eliza Collins and a Mr. Diggory, is not to be undertaken lightly.”

“Does Maria know of our parents' change of heart?” Eliza asked.

“She does not, for I wanted no one else to know before I could tell you. It was fortuitous that my father's attack of gout necessitated my trip to London, otherwise, I believe, your mother was going to write to you, to ask you to return to Yorkshire.”

“As to that, I shall decide whether my great-niece remains in London or not,” said her ladyship, pulling the bell tug. And, as her butler appeared: “Show Mr. Diggory out, if you please. Good day to you, Mr. Diggory.”

“Go to China?” said Bartholomew, looking at Freddie with exasperation as his friend burst into his sitting room with this dramatic proposal on his lips. “For God's sake, go and put your head under a pump. Why should you want to go to China?”

“Or the East Indies, or Chile, or anywhere on the other side of the world.”

“Your geography is at fault, none of those places is on the other side of the world. I suppose you have asked Miss Collins to marry you, and she has refused you?”

“I offered her my hand and my heart,” said Freddie, holding his hand against his chest in a dramatic gesture. “She turned me down. No drooping her head or blushes or beating about the bush, trying to do it prettily, leaving me a glimmer of hope. No. She looked at me straight in the eye and said no. She means to have Montblaine, I am certain of it. She is a heartless, scheming woman, but dear God, Bartholomew, she is so beautiful!”

“Have her portrait painted, and hang it on your wall, and make do with that,” said Bartholomew. “She's not for you, Freddie, and you have to be fair, she's never shown any preference for you over all the other men who worship her beauty; her rejection of your proposal can't have been any surprise.”

Freddie wasn't listening. “Montblaine! Why, the man's not made of flesh and blood. He's not won her heart, I don't believe she cares tuppence for him. She is simply dazzled by his rank and fortune.”

“You were getting along famously with that dark, merry girl at the Wintertons' ball, what was her name? The sister to that disagreeable man who clumped around the ballroom after Miss Eliza Collins. Indulge yourself in a little flirtation there.”

“Did you notice her? She is Maria Diggory, from the north, and, yes, she is full of fun. Her brother is in love with Eliza Collins, she told me that her father will not agree to their marrying, and so they will wait until she is of age. Miss Diggory says they will then marry even without their parents' blessing; she expects they will elope, at the dead of night. Why should an elopement not happen at a reasonable hour? I asked her, but she has a romantic nature, and insists that a daytime elopement would not be at all the same.”

“I didn't think that Eliza Collins was as pleased to see Mr. Diggory as he was to see her.”

“Now you mention it, Miss Diggory was annoyed with her friend's reception of her brother. Eliza was not half-pleased enough to see Mr. Diggory, she had no idea of his coming to town, apparently, but should at once have fallen into raptures or a swoon or cast herself into his embrace. I told her that in town young ladies behave with propriety and dignity, and do not fling themselves into the arms of their lovers when they arrive hotfoot from the wolds or whatever they have in Yorkshire. She is a romp, that girl, a rare handful, I dare say her brother will have his work cut out keeping her out of mischief.”

Freddie's words were barbs in Bartholomew's soul and heart. That was why Eliza had refused his hand so abruptly, almost with terror. Why could she not have said, there is a former attachment, I hope to become the wife of another man?

He would not give way to the bitter swell of jealousy. That she had not spoken such words must give him some hope. And so must the fact that Eliza's welcome to Diggory was not as wholehearted as it might have been. He could not be entirely mistaken in her feeling towards him, and after all, there was no formal engagement, no reason for her to be bound to Mr. Diggory, if her feelings towards him had changed.

“Well, I suppose I'll end up married to the Chetwynd girl, with a nursery of bun-faced children,” Freddie said mournfully. “What does it matter whom I marry, if Charlotte will not have me?” He kicked the fireguard with one immaculately polished boot, and stared into the empty grate.

Bartholomew's sitting room was a pleasant chamber overlooking the garden, which was kept in splendid order under the watchful eye of Lady Sarah, a keen horticulturalist and an expert rose grower.

“How your mother's roses flourish,” said Freddie, looking out of the window. “Ours at Rosely are all afflicted with some bug, some insect that chews and chomps at the roots. They are all in a fret about it, there have been roses there for generations, of course, planted back in the time of one of those Plantagenet or Tudor kings on account of the family name. If they all have to be rooted up, I shall plant something dark and festering in their place, to mark a black day in the annals of our house.”

“First China, and now weeds, do buck up, Freddie. I can't listen to your meanderings any more, I have to be on my way.”

His valet came in at that moment, a coat laid with great care across his arm. He eased Bartholomew into it, and flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the lapel before smoothing a tiny wrinkle from the back.

“Nice cut,” said Freddie. “Did Schweitzer make it for you?”

“He makes all my coats. Yes, what is it?” Bartholomew said to a footman who was hovering in the doorway.

“Her ladyship's compliments. And she wishes to see you before you leave. She is in the garden, in the rose arbour.”

“It'll be an errand,” Freddie said. “My mother is always sending me on errands, keeps a pack of servants in the house, but the minute I set foot in it, she's asking me to do this or that. If I lived on the premises, I wouldn't have a moment's peace. I don't know why you stay here, Bart, I really don't. Move out, and we'll find rooms to share.”

Bartholomew had always been happy with the handsome apartments given to him in his parents' house. The location of the house was excellent, the rooms comfortable, and his parents had never interfered with his independence, he came and went just as he chose, and on the evenings when he was at home, he was glad to be able to talk about bank business with his father, over a glass of brandy in the handsome library.

Five minutes later, as the full blast of his mother's fury swept over him, he began to wish that he did indeed live elsewhere; he could understand the appeal that China had for Freddie.

Lady Sarah was dressed for the purpose in a wide straw hat tied under her chin with a ribbon, and a long, brown gardener's apron over her dress. She carried a shallow basket, in which reposed secateurs and twine and a little spray bottle.

Mr. Grainger had called on Mr. Bruton, Lady Sarah informed her son, and had delivered an ultimatum. Either the marriage so long planned between Bartholomew and Jane took place, with an immediate announcement of their engagement, or the proposals for the merger of the two banks would not happen. “You are dilatory,” said Lady Sarah, snipping off a dead rose. “We long to have Jane for our daughter, it has been understood that you would marry, and you have shilly-shallied and delayed, all from some ridiculous idea that marriage would curtail your freedom—what, pray, does freedom have to do with a banker and matrimony?”

“It is not a matter of freedom,” said Bartholomew, tugging at his neck cloth. “I do not care enough for Jane to marry her. I should make her a shockingly bad husband, we would be miserable. We have been through all this, and yet you keep thrusting her at me, as though I might suddenly change my mind. I am sorry about the deal, but I am not a pile of gold to be placed in the balance as part of the cost of the business.”

“I know what it is. You fancy yourself in love with Miss Eliza Collins—no, do not deny it. I observed you closely when we were at Montblaine, where you completely neglected poor Jane, and since you came back, all of London must have seen you wearing your heart on your sleeve!”

He was aghast. “Wearing my heart on my sleeve! I think not, ma'am.”

“I am not stupid, nor blind.” Snip, snap, went the secateurs. “It won't do, Bartholomew, and there's an end to it. There can be no comparison between this chit and Jane. Jane brings with her a great inheritance from her grandfather and blue blood from her father's family. Miss Eliza Collins can bring nothing but a lively nature and a clerical background. What use is that to a banker?”

“Jane is dull, and I do not love her.”

“Miss Eliza Collins is a flirt, who does not love you. Did you not see her with that Mr. Diggory? There's talk about that, now, it's all over town. Not that she is a creature of the least importance, except for the reflected glory cast upon her by virtue of her sister having caught the eye of Montblaine. And that is all a hum, it will come to nothing, mark my words. If it were not for that, no one would notice or care that Mr. Diggory and Miss Eliza Collins have some kind of understanding.”

“I would care. He may be in love with her, it means nothing.”

“Does it not? And what if I tell you that the Grandpoints are determined she shall marry the Reverend Nathaniel Pyke.”

Bartholomew's face darkened. “That lanky clergyman? Do you think I fear him as a rival?”

“It would be an entirely suitable match for her. I have told you, she has no position, no money, nothing in her favour.”

“You do not know her, you should not speak of her in those terms. Not in any case, and certainly not when you know I am in love with her.”

“You were in love with Clementine Joure in Paris, and we did not have all this nonsense then.”

“Clementine Joure!” How had that affair come to his mother's ears? It had been a brief, passionate, delicious interlude, nothing more—nor less. “I was never in love with Clementine.”

“In which case you should be ashamed of yourself, your attentions can have done nothing for her reputation.”

Clementine's reputation was not such as would be in the least bit diminished by her affair with him, but he could scarcely say so to his mother. Not, his common sense told him, that she didn't know exactly what Clementine was like.

Now she was waving those damned secateurs in the air, to emphasise her point.

“Wild oats are all very well, but you are past that age now. What is youthful indiscretion in a younger man becomes pure folly in one of your age.”

“I am not yet in my dotage, I believe.”

“No.” Lady Sarah bent over to sniff the scent of a glorious crimson rose. Then she frowned, and handed the secateurs to Bartholomew. “Hold these, while I use my little spray, there's greenfly on the buds here. Dreadful insects, I do not see why the Good Lord saw fit to create such nasty, useless things.”

She finished her spraying and then gathered her skirts to walk to another bed of roses. Bartholomew's boots scrunched on the gravel as he kept pace with her, although he longed to turn on his heel and decamp from the garden and his mother's forceful presence.

“The choice is yours. You can continue in your wilful, self-indulgent refusal to marry Miss Grainger, which will bring inconvenience and considerable losses to the bank, and sorrow and grey hairs to your father and myself, or you can do your duty and propose, in proper style, and fix a day. One thing you will not do is marry a pert girl from Yorkshire, we will not under any circumstances allow that.”

“I'm of age, I may marry whom I like,” Bartholomew muttered mutinously to himself. It would not be pleasant to have a wife whom his parents disliked or despised, and, yes, there could be financial repercussions. As the only son, he stood to inherit the bank and a vast fortune, but his father, who had an obstinate streak, could well take it into his head to disinherit him and pass him over in favour of one of his cousins. The inheritance of Bruton's bank had not always passed in an unbroken line from father to son, it could happen.

He reached out for a fine bloom, a rich, deep claret colour, then swore as a vicious thorn dug itself into his finger. “We shall never agree on this. If you have no more to say to me, I have to attend at the bank.”